


The Steep and Thorny Way

by emungere



Series: Hathaway's Heart [1]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a snippet, set right after the pilot episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Steep and Thorny Way

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to louiselux for beta and britpick! 
> 
> Title stolen from Hamlet: 
> 
> Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,  
> Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven.

The case is wrapped up. Their killer is dead before the ambulance arrives. James coordinates the clean up while Lewis watches from a distance. Presumably he's contemplating his future, though if he thinks Innocent will still want to put him out to pasture after this, he doesn't think nearly enough of himself. Which would not surprise James at all. 

Innocent arrives and works her way up through DCs and various emergency workers, interrogating the lower echelons. She's convinced this has all gone horribly wrong somehow, and that it's Lewis's fault. He can see it in the slim, vertical slice between her eyebrows. It eases, person by person. By the time she reaches him, she is convinced. 

"So," she says. "Do we know what he took yet?" 

"Not yet. He gave his wife the same thing though. They're both gone." 

She nods, glances at Lewis. "Sounds as if it was an interesting case." 

"It was." 

"And DI Lewis?" 

He considers only briefly, vetting his opinion not for accuracy but for the wisdom of sharing it. It's probably not advisable. He says it anyway. "Exceptional." 

She raises her eyebrows at that, but goes straight on to the next thing. He suspects her of mental flowcharts. "DI Knox won't be back for some time, if at all. Granger needs someone. Do you think you two would suit?" 

James squints up into the flat, afternoon light. "Am I right in thinking that Detective Inspector Lewis will be staying on with us, ma'am?" 

She hesitates barely a second. "Yes. I believe he will." 

"He'll need someone as well." 

"And you'd like to be that someone."

"If he'll have me." 

She glances across the road to Lewis and then back to James, who is wearing his most guileless expression. She sighs. "I expect he will. God help me," she adds under her breath as she walks off. 

James puts his hands in his pockets, rocks on his toes, and waits. 

Lewis asked him at the airport: _Are you for me?_ Turns out he is. There's something very neat about that. It's narratively satisfying. James can even imagine sharing that observation with Lewis. Not now. Someday. He put up with the Hamlet stuff very well, but there's no sense in pushing him too far. 

Innocent and Lewis are too far away for James to overhear their conversation, but he can see the moment when Innocent gives him the news. She tied it up with James's request somehow; there is only one expression of surprise, and it's all directed at James. It's followed up with the frown of someone who sees nothing extraordinary in what he's done, who would no doubt say, if asked, that he was just doing his job. And he would mean it, from the heart. 

As soon as Innocent departs, Lewis beckons James over with a sharp tilt of his head. 

James slides away from the noise of the scene. He leans against the car and waits. Lewis looks over his shoulder at the ants' nest of activity. It's starting to wind down, bodies on their way to the mortuary. 

"The superintendent says you want to be my bagman. Is that right?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Nothing wrong with DI Granger, as I remember." 

"No, sir." 

Lewis glances at him and nods in the direction of the pub. "Pint?" 

James nods back. They leave the car where it is and walk. James shortens his stride fractionally and wishes for a cigarette, but now is not the time. He's waiting for a verdict. He doesn't think Lewis is the sort to let him down gently over a drink, but James has only known him for three days. 

Lewis walks slowly, heavily. James wonders if it's being back in Oxford, if he moved differently in ocean air, or if this is something innate to him and nothing to do with the weight of grief he carries. It wasn't different while he was abroad, James decides. Couldn't have been. Not when his grief has such gravity that he brought wild orchids to his wife's grave from half a world away. 

The power of that grief, that gesture, tugs at James's imagination. In an effort not to be swallowed by it, he says something he didn't mean to: "Do you remember what you said to me at the airport?" 

Lewis smiles, mostly with his eyes. "Are you for me. Funny thing, life." 

"That it is, sir." 

They're just coming to the bridge, which is nicely symbolic. James lets a bounce creep into his step for a pace and a half, just until they leave the gravel for warm, echoing wood. 

Lewis keeps glancing at him sideways, quick little looks accompanied by frowns, as if he's trying to work James out. He seems as baffled to have him as James is to be had. And maybe he's even as pleased.


End file.
